Under that agreement, hammered out after a surge in tensionsfollowing the North's first nuclear weapons test last year,Pyongyang promised to close the plant in return for energy aidand diplomatic concessions.

In the communists state's first substantive comments since Hill's visit, a foreign ministry spokesman also said the the two sides had agreed to resume six-party talks on dismantling the nuclear programme early next month.

"The discussions were comprehensive and productive," the spokesman was quoted as saying by the official Korean Central News Agency.

Hill said that the next round of talks between the US, China, Japan, Russia and the two Koreas would get under way after the reactor was closed.

Beginning of the process

But he also said that closing the facility was just the beginning of the process.

"Shutting down the reactor does not solve all our problems," he told reporters in Tokyo.

In Pyongyang, Hill met PakUi-Chun, North Korea's foreign minister, and Kim Kye-Gwan, its chief envoy to the six-party talks that drew up the February 13 accord.